Comments on: DRM Is Not Evil

By: Kristeen Miniuk

Kristeen Miniuk — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:18:53 +0000

Things you brought up a lot of sense. Yet, consider this, let’s say you integrated a little more? What i’m saying is, I don’t tend to teach how to write your site, but what if you added extra content that could get peoples awareness? Just as a video or maybe a snapshot or 2 to get people psyched concerning what you mentioned.

By: Amazon’s e-book disappearing act | Arthur Attwell

Amazon’s e-book disappearing act | Arthur Attwell — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:51:49 +0000

[...] reasons DRM will eventually fall away for e-books (see the excellent discussion in the comments here and here for some of these reasons) as it already has for music. While producers and retailers [...]

By: Bryon Tingle

Bryon Tingle — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:45:31 +0000

I’m not sure exactly why but this blog is loading extremely slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a issue on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists. Thanks!

By: NM

NM — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:53:50 +0000

There are instances where DRM can make some sense. I hate DRM with a passion, but even I have to admit that in some cases it can theoretically serve a purpose. I say theoretically, because in practice it’s a pain in the bottom, but let’s ignore it for now. One is the “rental” business model, whereby you get access to a large collection of titles for an affordable monthly fee. The other one is when the content is not available by any other mean, so it makes sense for the distributor to try to punish its customers. The only example I can think of is high def movies on Blue Ray; you can’t find them on any other format, so if they block that one from being copied, it can’t be copied at all.

What is completely idiotic is to put DRM on stuff that’s available without it.

Two examples:

- I wanted to listen to Bob Woodward’s “The War Within.” Available in castrated, badly compressed proprietary format from audible.com for $25. I can’t even listen to those since I use Linux. So instead I ordered it in CD form from an amazon.com affiliate for $10, shipping included. Mind you, I’m in Europe so that meant shipping half a kg of plastic across the ocean, and the delivery took 3 weeks, but that’s less than half the price and there is no shackles! And I can resell it on eBay when I’m done listening to it.

- Arte is a French-German publicly funded TV channel. You can record its programs in high definition over the air, or stream (and rip easily) all of its programs for a week after it’s been broadcast. They have a VOD service. Not only is it *very* expensive (something like €5 to download a year old 15 min show), it’s also protected by the craptastic Windows DRM (incompatible with Macs and Linux). What are they trying to protect it from? Are they afraid that someone who just paid them good money would then make copies for their friends or put them on p2p networks? Well, guess what, geniuses, they can already do that with *all* the programs you brodcast in the first place.

By: How much money does Cory Doctorow make? ¶ Personal Weblog of Joe Clark, Toronto

How much money does Cory Doctorow make? ¶ Personal Weblog of Joe Clark, Toronto — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:27:42 +0000

[...] a comment on an unrelated topic (going off-topic is typical of the copyleftist species), Doctorow opens a [...]

By: The Great Geek Manual » Geek Media Round-Up: July 22, 2009

The Great Geek Manual » Geek Media Round-Up: July 22, 2009 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:01:28 +0000

[...] Digitalist makes the argument that DRM is Not Evil. As some one who is constantly broke, I tend to disagree, but it’s not an argument without [...]

By: Amazon, Orwell, and the Truth About DRM | Fiction Matters

Amazon, Orwell, and the Truth About DRM | Fiction Matters — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:50:17 +0000

[...] of Pan Macmillian, sparked a firestorm of a debate at the Digitalist over one simple assertion, “DRM is not evil.” While Pan Macmillian is one of the more progressive major publishing houses when it comes to [...]

By: “A publisher that uses DRM is not worth of trust.” « … ach, nichts.

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:17:49 +0000

[...] in den Kommentaren hochkarätig besetzte Diskussion über Pro und Contra von DRM im Verlagswesen (Teil 1 / Teil 2); die Überschrift zu diesem Artikel habe ich bei Paula in der Kommentarsektion des 2. [...]

By: MCM

MCM — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:00:59 +0000

I’m as big a critic of DRM as anyone, but for me, the issue is even more basic: the idea of DRM is fundamentally flawed, and savvy technologists trick content producers into bankrolling their snake oil at the expense of creating new art. You’re desperate for ways to protect your wares (largely thanks to fearmongering by the aforementioned technologists), so you’ll buy into anything that sounds half-plausible. You spend a million dollars to protect something that will be cracked and re-distributed within days of release, and so now you have to hire lawyers to chase down the people that broke your expensive protection. And in the end, your DRM has caused enough legitimate customers enough headaches that they give up on your product entirely, costing you even more.

The truth of the matter is that the only thing that works online is slippery rights management: making the content so easy to buy (and so pervasive) that customers can’t be bothered to pirate it. You’re going to “lose” some sales to unauthorized users, but if the past ten years has shown us anything, it’s that you’re going to lose those sales anyway. Dwelling on it won’t change it. Rather than adding friction to the system, grease it up. It’s easier to do, and cheaper by far.

Look at it this way: if I said I had a magic potion that would turn all pirates into frogs, would you believe me? That’s what DRM is about. If you brought an idea like that to your board of directors, you’d get fired on the spot. That’s the disconnect. And as a creator of content, it bugs me that money is being wasted on such a silly pursuit.

Content industries can only survive through the creation of new art. DRM is draining resources for transparently false endeavours.

By: Amazon: A Digital Thief in the Den « Trapdoor Books

Amazon: A Digital Thief in the Den « Trapdoor Books — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:04:51 +0000

[...] in 2009: Dystopian Rights Management, and Pan Macmillian’s the digitalist with the title DRM Is Not Evil. As for me, I am going to rustle up my paperback copy of 1984 and read about Winston Smith as he [...]